Fortunately
by evizyt
Summary: What happens when you realize that you love the girl of your dreams? "Piss off, Potter." Ah, right, that. Fortunately, no one can resist James Potter when he puts on the charm, not even a previous arch-nemesis. And yes, I am talking about Lily Evans.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hey! This was designed as a companion piece for my other story, told from Lily's POV, Unfortunately. That said, you don't actually have to read that to understand completely what's going on in this. It's just a James/Lily story, simple as that... Told in James' POV. Welcome to the bus. This ride shouldn't take too long...

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_Her lips were soft, and smooth, and incredibly, deliciously Lily. It took me a minute, but then it hit me. (Like a ton of bricks.) Lily Evans was kissing me, James Potter. And it was February, and I was cold. But more importantly: I WAS KISSING LILY EVANS. _

**Fortunately**

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They say that all good things begin in seventh year. I guess they're right. For me, it all started somewhere in those indecipherable weeks in the middle of September.

It was a normal day. An ordinary day.

However, in retrospect, it was, in fact, a very _extra_ordinary day.

It started off ordinarily enough.

I was walking to class, flanked by Moony and Padfoot (Peter had forgotten his textbooks.) Lily Evans was rushing in front of us—late, as usual—to Charms—as always. Her hair was messy, her clothes ruffled and ill-fitting, her bag a hectic jumble of parchment and quills and random textbooks. Somehow, though, I knew that somewhere in there was still every single perfectly done assignment, to be handed in miraculously wrinkle-free, and gaining a mark to rival my own.

Okay, so, maybe beat my own. But not in Transfiguration.

Well, maybe sometimes in Transfiguration.

Point being, Lily Evans was a mess. Lily Evans was _always_ a mess. She was a complete basketcase. Padfoot pretty much summed it up, once, in sixth year. She had just snapped at him for leaving something—I have no idea what, exactly—in the common room, and after reading him the riot act, he just turns to me (right in front of her) and utters this single—completely _bloody_ brilliant—sentence.

"She's completely nutters," he said mournfully, shaking his head and eyeing her disparagingly. I couldn't help but agree. We watched her bustle around for a minute, a human tornado, only making a worse mess of the things she attempted to clean up, and then headed up to the dorm.

It's pretty common knowledge that in fifth year I had a little _thing_ for Lily Evans. Natural, right, as she was the only girl in the _school_ practically who didn't try and jump my bones whenever I turned the corner in a hallway.

Well, that's an exaggeration, but you understand.

I asked her out a few awkward times, she publicly humiliated me a few more, and things cooled down. We had a couple fights more and then we were back to enemies. Obviously I don't like her anymore, but it's weird. I'm not really capable of being neutral, either. It's like things are kind of _charged_ where Lily Evans is concerned.

So yeah, I was walking along the hall with my mates, watching her struggle along. I mean, we were late too, but we were so much more chill about it. Lily Evans was just so, incredibly, utterly un-cool. She was the least chill person I knew. Somehow she just utterly, miserably_ failed_ at that aspect of life.

I see her around quite a bit (Lily Evans, that is, not Padfoot,) so it wasn't anything special, or even really _interesting_. I was too busy teasing Padfoot about his crazy stalker fifth year.

"Shut up," he muttered, but I could tell he was blushing.

"She's gonna jump your bones in the library, mate," I joked. "Better make sure you have a bodyguard at all times."

"There will be no bone jumping in the library," Moony chuckled, and I grinned.

"Good," Padfoot muttered. "I'll just bring you, then, Prongs, and thrust you at her when she comes near. A human shield."

"Well, if you weren't so _pretty_," I teased, knowing that his good looks (inexplicably) embarrassed him. For one of the most arrogant people I know, Padfoot was surprisingly modest. He hated attention being brought to his looks or money, and would much rather be praised on tangible things like grades and accomplishments.

Not that he had any of those.

Okay, so he did, but I have more.

The staircase diverted our conversation, however, requiring all of our (small) attention spans. This particular one contained a large amount of trick steps, and so required cautious maneuvering. Ahead of us, Lily Evans was barreling down—not even bothering to hold the banister—one hand clutching her bag and the other holding her hat down over her wild hair.

And then, suddenly, _it_ happened.

I had looked up for a moment, attention diverted from stairs to crazy girl, just in time to see it.

One of the stones, dusty grey like all the others, must not have been exactly smooth. The thousands of students endlessly trudging over the stairs must not have stepped there often enough. The small lip in the old stone must not have included this small, sidelong lump. Obviously, no one would have spotted it.

Running down the stairs as fast as she could go—practically falling already—Lily Evans tripped. Padfoot and Moony didn't even see, but I did. I watched, feeling a little detached, as she fell down a couple stairs with a breathy gasp, landing awkwardly on her ankle and hurriedly righting herself with only a small wince of pain.

And this wasn't even the abnormal part. Lily Evans tripped all the time—she was one of the clumsiest people I knew. I bet she had even tripped over that same stair a bajillion times before. It was what I felt, when I saw her trip.

I felt this squeeze, around my heart, like a band suddenly constricted. Suddenly it seemed like Lily Evans was the only person in the room—in the world, even. I watched her fall, feeling as if it lasted forever, watching her as though miles of empty space stretched endlessly under her, threatening to engulf her flaming life if she should step in to its clutches. My entire body felt frozen, my nervous system unresponsive. In that moment, I felt pure, unadulterated terror run rampant through my veins, adrenaline surging like white water through my stomach.

"Prongs." Someone was talking to me "Prongs, snap out of it. We're late to Charms."

"Oh, right, yeah…" I mumbled, having no idea what I was agreeing to, mechanically taking a step down.

Lily Evans disappeared around a bend in the corridor, taking a little piece of my heart with her. And that was that.

I was in love with Lily Evans.

It's funny how things work out like that.

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**hmm? **


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Wow! I am restarting this story after years and years! I have only a year left before I graduate college, and I promised myself that I would complete my portfolio of fanfiction before graduation and then depart from the site. So this will be finished within the year, because I certainly can't imagine abandoning the project! I always envisioned this as a trilogy: Unfortunately, Fortunately, and Definitely (Happily Ever After.) So we'll see. _

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**Fortunately **

Chapter 2

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It's weird, how little things can change your life. And suddenly everything's happening, and it's out of your control and beyond every possibility you've ever imagined—but, simultaneously, you can't quite fathom going back to the way things used to be.

Lily was sitting in front of me in class. Her hair was hanging softly down her back, in a prim ponytail that she refused to touch or toy with. It was Charms class, NEWT level, and one of the more boring classes that I had ever attended in my seven years here, and yet she was ogling Flitwick as if he spoke in spells, scribbling something on her parchment as fast as her hand could move.

Moony was watching me out of the corner of his eyes, an unusual occurrence.

I turned slightly, so that he had a clear view of my lips. _Pay Attention_! I mouthed with mock ferocity, and saw his eyes narrow.

Behind me, I felt Padfoot snicker.

He shoved me as we were leaving the classroom. "Hey Prongs, did you fall asleep in that lecture or what?" I noticed Lily Evans heading in the opposite direction, and quashed the urge to follow her.

"Uh—yeah. That was terrible."

"Merlin, Flitwick can put you to sleep sometimes, huh?"

"Not as infallibly as Binns, though," I quipped, eliciting a laugh from Padfoot.

"The one class I could always count on for a nap…" He said fondly, sneaking a look around the corridor. Students were streaming around us, and with the chatter of conversation rising high to the ceiling, he clearly felt confident to quietly discuss more important matters.

"So…tonight?" He leaned closer, saying the words in a low tone.

I nodded. "How's Moony doing?" My tone was equally low. We weren't exactly quiet about our nicknames, and it wouldn't do to have anyone hear.

At that moment, a few sixth years walked by, giggling loudly. Padfoot recoiled from me as if burned, straightening his posture and running a hand through his hair.

I watched him for a minute, watched him watch the girls as they sauntered by, chattering idly about homework and hair products and the possibility of being invited by a seventh year to the infamous graduation ball. I wasn't even sure if this ball existed, honestly, it was a rumor sort of thing, but we had already started making plans for how to disrupt it as much as possible. Unless, of course, Lily Evans were to be my date, in which case things would be very different.

But I'm getting way off topic. Heads probably have to go together, anyways. Can you believe that Lily and I are Heads together? You'd think that my charm and seductive ability would have already wooed her in to bed with me, wouldn't you? Not quite.

Fortunately, though, I had plenty of contingency plans.

So here I was, watching Sirius watching ladies, and noting how his posture got all funny-like when he was trying to impress people. Except, that the strange thing about Sirius (and I only refer to him as Sirius when I'm being serious, haha) is that he generally doesn't really notice girls on his own. They notice him, and giggle all the more voraciously and whatever it is that girls do, but he doesn't see them like that. They move around him like currents in the air, and fuck me if he doesn't give two shits about any of them. Padfoot has astronomical standards, I think.

We strolled off, and the girls slipped out of both our minds. Padfoot started blabbering to me about plans for tonight, but we generally always did the same exact thing despite exhaustive discussion so all I had to do was make sure the invisibility cloak wasn't lost.

Fortunately, I always knew exactly where it was—sort of like Lily Evans. Although it did have this strange, peculiar, I guess you would call it a propensity, to do really annoying and odd things, like disappear and reappear kind of inconveniently. So it was actually a legitimate task, keeping track of it.

"Hey Padfoot," I said, interrupting Pad's monologue. He grunted, which I took as a sign to continue. "How long do you think it will take for Lily to love me?" I had intended for it to sound arrogant and confident, a masculine man making a blasé observation on their lady love…But I'm worried it came off more as plaintive. Not that worried, though.

Pad smacked me upside the head. "Mate, you need to get it together."

"How long?"

"Forever. And that's being generous."

I glared at him, and pulled out the Marauder's map. "Wonder what Filch will be doing tonight?"

"Feel like some Mrs. Norris bating?"

We bared our teeth at each other. Mrs. Norris hated Pad's animagus, and we loved it. "Do we ever miss an opportunity?"

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"Yo, Prongs, hit me!"

I tossed Worm the pig-shaped marshmallow, that Pad had just spent like an hour transfiguring. He was getting pretty good, despite ostensibly never doing his course work, because the marshmallow had even taken on a faint pinkish tint, and had little ears and beady black eyes. I wondered if it would taste like pig or marshmallow. Maybe bacon flavored marshmallow. I was about to grab it back from Worm at that thought, but he shoved it into his mouth before I could.

"Yum," he said. "I love marshmallow." Obviously he had no appreciation for the finesse of potential bacon flavoring.

"Your animagus should have been a pig instead of a rat," I grouched, and Pad laughed a high pitched hyena laugh from the other bed, where he sat transfiguring my shoe.

"Hey!" I leapt up. "I like that one. Give it here!"

"Finders Keepers," Pad said smugly, as my shoe shimmered and began to look definitively scaly.

"The Fustenberg Finders have the worst Keepers in all of Quidditch," I snapped. "So it's a dumb expression."

"It's a figure of speech," Worm interjected. I glared at him.

"So, James," Moony began. It could only be him, because Moon is the only one who tries to call us by our actual names. I haven't told him about how sometimes when I'm thinking seriously, I think about us in our real names. I guess my parents also call me James… and Lily Evans.

"Yeah?" I said.

"What do you want most, in your life?"

Fortunately, I always have a rapid answer for this one. "Lily Evans."

Pad threw the transfigured shoe at my face, but I caught it before it broke my beautiful nose. "No, dumb arse, she doesn't count."

"No," Worm interrupted. "Surely there's something that, at this particular moment, you want more."

This is true. "This is true," I told them. "Because I know that Lily and I will end up together, and make beautiful children and live a life like a dream. So you see, occasionally, my desire to be with her is superseded by my material passions in the present."

"What does 'superseded' mean?" Worm asked.

"Beaten by," Moon explained. I cleared my throat.

"So, actually, what I want most, in this precise moment," I paused for dramatic effect, and Pad groaned.

"For Merlin's sake, Prongs, it's no wonder Evans can't stand you. When did you get so bloody preachy? You sound like Binns. Enough with the dramatic pausing."

"Fine," I huffed. "I want the Nimbus 800."

"That's not even in stores yet," Moony said.

"So that's like an invalid desire," Pad agreed.

"What's 'invalid,'" Worm asked, and I threw the scaled shoe at him ("OUCH!") as Moon sighed exasperatedly.

"Yo, Moon, get this one," Pad nodded in the direction of Worm.

Moony sighed. "If you're going to insist on calling me by my nickname, at least call me by my full nickname. Moon-y. Not Moon. Moon is a noun. My nickname is an adjective, thank you."

We all snorted and then asked Worm what he wanted most, and he told us more marshmallows.

"That's stupid," Pad told him.

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	3. Chapter 3

A/N: _WOW LOOK AT THAT! AN UPDATE! I'd like to give a huge thanks to my loyal reviewers for helping me churn this out with attempted rapidity. Please, please review and drop me a line, letting me know what you think. I haven't been this rapid and consistent in a while, and reviews are my sustenance. Also, shameless plug: If you're into Lily/James check out my other story "i'll show you how it began." It's almost done!_

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Fortunately

**Chapter 3**

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I was cleaning.

Tease me, call me feminine, laugh in my face (Padfoot does all three,) but I like to clean.

I'm a teenage boy. I can live in a disgusting excuse for a room or a fastidiously tidy girly room. It doesn't matter to me, as a long as there is a floor on which to sleep. Because, as an adolescent boy, I can also sleep anywhere. (Except under Peter's bed, I highly recommend you don't go there. I think he is growing _things_ under there.)

So why, you may ask, was I cleaning, if I didn't mind living in a messy room (which ours was.) Because it is a relaxing activity. I mechanically pick up, fold, place, admire, repeat. The fabric is soft, and folded pleasantly as it swished through my fingers. The creases smooth under a light touch, folding to become a compact bundle that places easily in a drawer, under a pillow, or on a chair.

While I suspect that Moony also engages in this activity, I have never actually questioned him regarding it. That would be highly effeminate, and as we all know, masculine to the core is one thing that absolutely and precisely describes James Potter.

At the moment, however, I was having very unmanly thoughts called _doubts_ and/or _worries. _

I saw Lily Evans the other day, and it was pretty chill. Actually, we had a giant fight, which was significantly less than chill. We haven't really been talking lately so after I was a bit of a giant arse I decided to take the high road, and say that I was sorry.

Fortunately, that seemed to be the correct course of action. It sort of derailed her entirely, and then things were fine. Maybe we'll be best friends now. Well, actually, most likely not, but I can always dream. Perhaps I've opened the doors to seduce her with the famed Potter charm.

The Potter men have always loved redheads.

After the big apology scene, of which there have been none, previously, I saw Lily. This was the next day, a strange day. Most people don't know this about me, and I consider it a well kept secret: I wake up early. I can't sleep much. I've never been able to go to bed early, or wake up late. When I was younger I was sensitive about it, and my Mum even got me diagnosed with insomnia and I have a potion for Dreamless Sleep that I can take whenever I please. But nowadays I've embraced it—a part of me that I've learned to enjoy.

And let's be honest, it's quite helpful with schoolwork and whatnot. I usually make it to sleep around two, and wake up at five or six, and call it a night. I don't really get tired.

So I'm always the first one at breakfast, and I'm always alone, looking dower and drinking coffee, staring pensively, I like to imagine, into the distance, watching the ceiling change from stars to a brilliant orangey-red. Most students stagger in around seven thirty, right before early morning classes, and I'm usually the one to grab toast for Pads and Worm; Moony usually gets here around seven forty five; enough time to inhale some pumpkin juice and an egg.

Only this morning, Lily Evans was there.

"Hey," I said, sliding into a seat at the Gryffindor table, carefully calculated to be neither too close nor too far away. I tried to maintain my loftiness, looking super cool (my usual.) The girl had hated me for years, (I think), so a sudden burst of warmth on my part would do little to change.

Those green eyes flew open in a burst of shock, and I smiled internally to watch how they widened in surprise. If it were anyone else, they might have choked on their pumpkin juice. Huh. I never would have pegged her for a pumpkin juice drinker. "Hi," she coughed, looking down, grabbing the mug of coffee to her left. Ah, sneaky, keeping the coffee on the left—unknowable to the causal observer.

Fortunately, I'd never been the casual sort where Lily Evans was concerned.

"You're up early," I said, then berated myself for revealing the fact that I had tracked her usual wakeup times. Surprisingly though, shockingly, she just blushed and looked down.

"Yes," she admitted, almost—shyly? "I, uh, couldn't sleep. Yeah. So…"

"I can never sleep!" I cried enthusiastically, and then harrumphed. "Yeah. I mean. I don't sleep, really."

She leaned forward, on one elbow, allowing her sheet of red hair to fall around her arm, shading half of her frame. I sometimes forgot how beautiful she was, but moments like this reminded me, as the creaminess of her skin glowed against her orange hair, and her eyes were depthless with interest. "Really?" She asked, and her voice was filled with familiar curiosity. It was a curiosity that was more than academic, something real, and I'd heard it before, when she asked questions in her favorite classes.

It was this sort of curiosity, I supposed, that kept her competing with me for the highest marks. Because when she looked at you like that, like you were the only person in the world with value, and you held all the answers to everything she'd ever wanted to know—you couldn't help but answer, understand, forget that her essays were crumpled and that she'd been late to class and that she'd run out of ink and had to bother Susan McKinnon for some in the middle of the lecture. Instead, you allowed yourself to sink, fall, and be consumed.

But I processed all this, and so retained the majority of my uber masculine, aloof persona. "Nah," I said casually. "I never have really been able to."

She blinked, once, and smiled, vaguely, and I almost lost it. "I never would have guessed," she breathed. Lily Evans had supposed things about me. Lily Evans _thought_ about me, I realized. And then I knew that I had won. So, fortunately, I ran my hand through my hair, let the moment drop, resisted doing the completely wrong thing and managed to do only the partially wrong thing, cracking a grin at her and returning to my pancakes.

She frowned, losing her interest, but never tripping mine.

So now I was cleaning, and worrying, and thinking about her, and about me, and wondering how on earth I would ever persuade her to marry me and love me forever and bear my children. Lots of children. What if she didn't want children? No, I couldn't worry about that, I had to worry about seducing her first. But surely she wanted children.

"Prongs? Mate, have you completely lost your mind, or only halfway?"

Pads was standing in the doorway, looking between me and the shirt I was folding with disgust, worry, and confusion warring for supremacy in his regal features. (Sometimes I think things like that, of people as 'regal,' and I want to Jelly-legs myself, right on the spot.)

"Um…I hope only halfway," I replied, tucking the shirt out of view. "Maybe like three-quarters?" Pads walked to his bed, smacking me upside the head.

"What's gotten into you?"

"The usual. You know."

"Been sleeping at all?"

"A bit."

"Less than usual."

"Maybe," I admitted. Sometimes I think that Pads knows me too well, reads me too well, and then I remember some of the things I just _intrinsically_ know about him, as if he's an arm or a leg, and then I think that maybe we're even.

Fortunately, he also knows me well enough not to push.

"Evans, isn't it," Pads said.

Well, usually.

"Um, yeah."

He sighed, running a hand through his longer hair in a motion that nonetheless mimicked my own, trademark, move. "Merlin, Prongs. I dunno if I'll ever really understand this."

"I don't need you to," I huffed, although I really, really sort of did.

He threw a pillow at me. "Shut up, you tosser. What's the problem this time?"

"We spoke for a bit, and, no—stop laughing!—well," I buried my face in my hands. For one long second, I thought I might actually cry. When I looked up, luckily still retaining my macho façade, Pads was punching me in the shoulder, sitting at the other end of the bed.

"Mate," he said, his tone unfamiliarly warm and vaguely understanding. "Look. Nobody's worth this kind of agony." I sighed, but he punched me again. "No, seriously. Listen. I know you, a bit, at least, and I know how we all—well, you know. The Marauders, we care about what," he coughed, "like, appearances and shit."

It was the closest any of us had ever come to explicitly referencing our posturing, inherent in all teenage boys, the way we wanted to appear. Probably none of us would ever approach it so eloquently again.

Sirius harrumphed again, and then continued with his meandering speech. "Like, anyways. Evans, she doesn't care. Whatever. About that kind of thing, she's just not that interested. C'mon mate, you know that. So just… be a little more, open. Yourself. What Moon says."

"Moony," I corrected absently.

"Fuckin Moon can't even handle a nickname of a nickname, and here he is always preaching for us to just act like our true selves all the time," Sirius sighed, and then he was Pad again.

"Lily doesn't like me this way, who says she's going to dig any other way?"

Pads punched me for a third time and got off the bed. "Then you haven't got a chance in hell, have you? And she's about the dumbest witch that will have ever come along, if you ask me."

He turned to head out of the tower, and suddenly, inexplicably, I felt completely better. Because no matter what he said, or how he acted, or what he looked like—Sirius understood.

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